Linking Shorebird Conservation and Education along Flyways: An
Overview of the Shorebird Sister Schools Program1
Hilary Chapman2 and Heather Johnson2
________________________________________
The Shorebird Sister Schools Program (SSSP) is an
internet-based environmental education program that
provides a forum for students, biologists, and shorebird
enthusiasts to track shorebird migration and share
observations along flyways. The program’s vision is to
engage public participation in the conservation of
shorebirds and their wetland, grassland, and shoreline
ecosystems along flyways. The target audiences are
students and educators. However, facilitating interaction between biologists, students, and educators is an
essential component of the program. In addition, numerous volunteer shorebird enthusiasts participate in
the program and greatly enrich the information that is
shared. Partnerships at the local, state, regional,
national, and international levels are crucial for this
program to function. Although the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) is responsible for maintaining
the primary program components that include a web
site, list server, and K-12 curriculum, partner input into
each component is essential.
The Shorebird Sister Schools Program (http://sssp.fws.
gov) began in May of 1994 as a supplemental education program of the Kachemak Bay shorebird festival
in Homer, Alaska. The Alaska Maritime National
Wildlife Refuge, the local chamber of commerce, and
local educators hosted the festival. During the first two
years of the festival, 1992 and 1993, school field trips
were planned to observe the thousands of shorebirds
that stopped to rest and feed for two weeks before
continuing to their artic breeding grounds. The birds’
migration stops were predictable and viewing was easy
because of a vast open stretch of water and mudflat.
Local festival planners recognized that their conservation education efforts were only focused on the short
time while the birds were in Homer, so they began
looking for a way to make the phenomenon of migration more real to students.
A local teacher proposed the use of e-mail to build an
information-sharing network among schools located
along the Pacific flyway. Students from each stopover
site monitored the progress of shorebird spring mi__________
1
A version of this paper was presented at the Third International Partners in Flight Conference, March 20-24, 2002,
Asilomar Conference Grounds, California.
2
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 698 Conservation Way,
Shepherdstown, WV 25443. E-mail: sssp@fws.gov.
gration and reported their observations by e-mail to
other schools participating in the project. In 1994, 17
schools from California to Alaska were connected
using a basic Internet e-mail service.
At the start of the program the focus of the effort was
to link schools along the United States portion of the
Pacific flyway. The program has grown to include links
between schools and partners along five flyways in the
western and eastern hemispheres. The goal of SSSP is
to increase awareness and knowledge and facilitate
public participation in the conservation of shorebirds
and the wetland, grassland, and shoreline ecosystems
they depend on (Chapman et al. 2002b). This paper
serves to provide an account of the SSSP development
and current status.
In 1996, the program was transferred from the Alaska
Maritime National Wildlife Refuge in Homer, Alaska
to the USFWS Alaska Regional Office. From 1996 to
2000, the program grew to include a kindergarten to
12th-grade curriculum (De Zeeuw 1998), a World
Wide Web site (http://sssp.fws.gov), and a faster and
more convenient e-mail list server. The program also
expanded its geographic coverage to include volunteer
program coordinators for Mexico, South America, and
Japan and, accordingly, the curriculum was translated
into Spanish, Russian, and Japanese. Educator workshops for teachers and non-formal educators were held
in Mexico, Argentina, Russia, and numerous places in
the United States. The focus of this period was to
expand the program along the entire Pacific Flyway
and introduce the program to partners along the EastAsian Australasian Flyway. This was possible due to
support from USFWS Alaska regional staff and the
assignment of a dedicated education specialist who
worked with biologists to further develop the program.
The current focus is to continue working along the
Pacific Flyway and expand the program to the American Central and Atlantic Flyways through educator
workshops, presentations, networking, and developing
new partnerships (fig. 1). Education and outreach to
communities living near and within important coastal
and inland habitats that shorebirds depend on along
these flyways is critical. In 2000, the SSSP moved to
the USFWS National Conservation Training Center.
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Shorebird Sister Schools Program – Chapman and Johnson
ent of the National Science Education Standards
(National Research Council 1996).
The tracking projects and other participatory projects
engage students in real life science—the successes,
challenges, and setbacks. Over the years, SSSP has
collaborated with the Prince William Sound Science
Center, the Point Reyes Bird Observatory, and the U.S.
Geological Survey to provide the opportunity for
students to track shorebird movements on-line, contribute data, and report banded birds.
Figure 1— The five shorebird migration flyways for shorebirds breeding in northern North America.
The USFWS Alaska regional office continues to maintain the lead coordination for SSSP activities in Alaska
and along the East Asian-Australasian and the central
Pacific Flyways (Chapman 2002). Also, as part of
national support for the program, SSSP receives crossprogram support from a number of USFWS offices at
the national and regional level, including the Division
of International Conservation, the National Wildlife
Refuge System, the National Conservation Training
Center, and the Division of Migratory Birds. A vital
part of national expansion is USFWS staff in each
region who have accepted collateral duties as their
region’s SSSP coordinator. The World Wide Web site
and curriculum are being revised to reflect all flyways
in the Western Hemisphere and include, for the first
time, non-artic nesting shorebirds.
SSSP curriculum, field trips, and workshops provide a
foundation of awareness and knowledge about shorebirds and their habitat. The program goes the next step
by providing opportunities for action. Action projects
are vital for making the educational linkage to the
larger conservation goal: ecosystem conservation along
flyways. SSSP action projects include observing shorebirds in the local community and reporting their
observations on the SSSP list server; becoming involved with community habitat conservation and nominating their community for a Shorebird Sister City award;
learning about other communities along the flyway
through pen-pal exchanges; and tracking shorebird
migration as it is reported via the SSSP list server.
In keeping with the program’s vision, the SSSP must
connect closely with research and management. A
good example is a recent Buff-breasted Sandpiper
(Tryngites subruficollis) project in which researchers
from USGS teamed up with SSSP to involve students
and shorebird enthusiasts (Johnson 2002). The U.S
Shorebird Conservation Plan Council provides the link
to a network of researchers and managers who work
with educators to ensure that SSSP is integrated with
shorebird conservation priorities. This strengthens the
program’s relevance and guides the program’s expansion in the best direction. Moreover, the SSSP is a
recommended education program in the United States
Shorebird Conservation Plan (Brown et al. 2001).
Evaluation is crucial to determine if the program is
meeting its vision and contributing to shorebird conservation goals. Educator evaluations, annual work plans,
web site use, and list server interaction are all evaluation tools used by SSSP. The use of the SSSP web site
grows every year and demonstrates a growing interest
in the program. Since the web site was first established
in 1996, the program has gone from several thousand
hits on the web page during spring migration to over
100,000 hits in 2001 (fig. 2). Web site use also
indicates which pages are of the most interest to users;
program staff can then focus on improving and
increasing attention on those topic areas. Evaluations
from SSSP workshops, the curriculum, and other educational resources provide a guide for making program
revisions. Feedback from teachers and their students is
also very helpful. An evaluation of the program is
completed on an annual basis (Chapman et al. 2002a).
100000
80000
60000
Web Hits
40000
Students learn that habitats in their own communities
are part of a chain of healthy habitats that shorebirds
and other migratory species depend on. Expanding the
possibilities for students to monitor, research, and participate is an important area of focus for the program.
This type of inquiry learning is an important compon-
20000
0
1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001
Figure 2— Number of visits ("hits") to the Shorebirds
Sister School Program website from 1996-2001.
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Shorebird Sister Schools Program – Chapman and Johnson
The SSSP would not exist with out partnerships. For
example, a new partnership with National Estuarine
Research Reserve sites designated by the National
Oceanic Atmospheric Administration will help expand
SSSP to key shorebird stopover and breeding areas
along the Pacific, Atlantic, and Gulf coasts. Examples
of partner projects include educator workshops, spring
tracking projects, new product development, and distance learning broadcasts. In all aspects, state and
federal agencies, non-government organizations, and
universities work together to achieve shorebird conservation education. Because of these partnerships more
can be accomplished for flyway conservation. In addition, partners help SSSP compete more effectively for
grant money.
In the future, we would like to increase and strengthen
our partnerships in the United States and internationally. We would also like to introduce a research project
in which students can participate. We intend to expand
our web site to include a new on-line registration
system and electronic pen pals program in an effort to
better connect people along flyways.
Chapman, H. 2002. International partnerships for shorebird
and wetland conservation. Fish and Wildlife News
June/July/August: 19.
Chapman, H., S. Fellows, S. Thomas, S. Bowden, T. Mills, S.
Brewer, B. Swarbrick, R. Hinkle. 2002a. Shorebird sister
schools final report fiscal year 2002. Shepherdstown,
WV: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Conservation
Training Center. Division of Education Outreach;, 25443.
Chapman, H., S. Fellows, S. Thomas, S. Bowden, T. Mills, S.
Brewer, B. Swarbrick, R. Hinkle. 2002b. Shorebird sister
schools program 2002 Action Plan. Shepherdstown, WV:
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Conservation
Training Center. Division of Education Outreach:, 25443.
De Zeeuw, M. 1998. Artic-nesting shorebirds curriculum for
grades K-12. Anchorage, Alaska: U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, Department of the Interior.
Johnson, H. 2002. Research and education team-up on Buffbreasted Sandpiper project. In: Wildlife without borders,
Spring.Washington, DC: International Affairs, Fish and
Wildllife Service, U.S. Department of the Interior; 3.
Available at: http://library.fws.gov/ia_pubs/wwb_spring02.
pdf
National Research Council. 1996. National science education
standards. National Academy of Sciences. Washington,
DC: National Academy Press.
Literature Cited
Brown, S., C. Hickey, B. Harrington, and R. Gill, editors. 2001.
United States shorebird conservation plan. Manomet
Center for Conservation Sciences; 28-29. http://
shorebirdplan.fws.gov/
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